


scout's honour

by Nivena



Series: allopreening [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Nightwing (Web Series)
Genre: Banter, Batfamily Feels, Boys being dumb and emotionally repressed boys, Brotherly Relationship, Bruce Wayne's A+ Parenting, Case Fic, Detectives, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, First Meetings, Gen, Happy Endings and Fluff, Jason Todd is Robin, Literary References & Allusions, Murder, Mystery, References to Shakespeare, Stabbing, actually not a WIP for once lmao, boy scout jokes, dick rolls with it, in case ur uncomfortable with that n shit, surprise brotherhood, this is a batman buddy-cop movie okay leave me alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nivena/pseuds/Nivena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason meets his older brother for the first time.</p><p>alternatively: local children solve murders and hate their dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. not much to look at

**Author's Note:**

> this was written completely on my phone so I apologise for any spelling errors but at the same time i don't gi ve a f uck.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason meets Dick for the first time. There is a knife involved. 
> 
> Who's, I'm not saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey multi-chap fic that's actually all written out already!!!
> 
> updates once a week on the weekends.

Bruce Wayne was, by many accounts, an absolute cockbiting dickhead of epic proportions. (Bab's words, not his.)

Nobody knew this more than the very first Robin, who retired due to circumstances involving an one-eyed man and nanobots, and also weird obligations involving his (dead) family and some (equally dead) owls.

Dick's life was fucking weird, which was something Jason could comfortably and non-hypocritically say at that stage in his life. That was going to change really soon but for now, Jason could be judgmental.

But, regardless of circumstances, Dick _had_ retired. Or, moved on at least. Nightwing in Blüdhaven, which, he could not say was particularly a step in the "up" direction. Because, you know, Gotham was _crazy_ , but Blüdhaven was just straight up evil. And smelled bad.

Especially Dick's apartment building. It was stale cigarettes and a little iron-y scented, like old blood was spilled there. Which, yeah, _Blüdhaven_. Despite all that, Jason couldn't help but feel just a little excited. Even _Batman_ hadn't been able to figure out where the golden boy was now.

(This probably had more to do with not wanting to see Dick in the least, but we'll let Jason have this one.)

There was only one lock in place on the door, which took Jason all of half a minute to pick. It almost made him wonder if he was even in the right place. If he was about to mistakenly walk in on a naked old man, he'd like a warning.

He swung the door open and narrowly missed hitting a kitchen knife with his nose.

He was in the right place.

"Jesus," he said, prying the offending projectile out of the door frame, "you do that to everybody?" Probably. There were _many_ marks on that frame, all bearing a resemblance to the gouge left behind by utensil in his hand. _See_ , he could be a detective too.

Dick, for the most part, just kind of watched. His irises were incongruously pale compared to his black hair and brown skin, a few too many shades apart to be overlooked. Instead, it was striking and gave the slight air of supernatural to him. Combined with his silence, it was unnerving and gave Jason the irrepressible urge to _ramble_  to help fill the empty space. He probably learned that from Batman.

Dick was leaning against his kitchen counter, arms crossed and in surprisingly casual clothes. Jason wasn't sure what he had expected, but T-shirt and sweatpants was not it. It seemed too human for someone who existed solely in Bruce's stories.

Jason decided to take some initiative and walked into the small apartment. Then, for lack of things to do, he sat on the couch, viciously ignoring the spring that very suddenly began digging into his side. Also, he was still holding the knife. It seemed a bit silly, but he couldn't just drop it on the floor now, because that would be awkward.

Dick turned back to whatever he was working on at the counter. Dinner, probably.

"Close the door," he finally said, not even making eye contact.

Jason got up and closed the door. "So," he said, arms folded while clutching the knife ridiculously. "You're probably wondering how I found you. And maybe who I am."

"Not really. Give me the knife," Dick said.

"What?! No way! You threw this at my head! I _need_ it to _defend_ myself."

"It's meant for cutting fruit. What could you possibly do with it that you can't with the batarang in your back pocket?"

Oh shit, he noticed that.

"What are _you_ gonna do with it?" Jason said instead.

"Well, _ideally_ , cut fruit," Dick responded, voice dripping with sarcasm. Yeah, he can see why Bruce fired him.

Grudgingly, he left the stupid fruit knife on the counter, a good seven steps away from Dick's position. Make the bastard _work_ for it.

Jason retreated, walking all the way back over to the couch and flopping on it. You'd think a former billionaire's child would be able to afford better couches.

"Are you just gonna sit there, or are you gonna help me?" Dick finally asked after a few minutes filled with the scrape of spoons on cheap ceramic.

"Help with what?" Jason asked intelligently. Dick Grayson was not at all what he'd expected, and it was throwing him off his game.

"Dinner," Dick answered simply. "You're hungry, aren't you?"

"Not really," Jason said, ignoring Dick's responding scoff.

"Cereal's in the second cupboard to the left, if you change your mind."

"It's like, 8 in the evening. If I'm having anything," Jason asserted, "it won't be cereal."

"Time is an immaterial concept, and your stomach just growled."

Jason didn't have a response to that. He got out a bowl.

* * *

 

After a brief argument -it turned out Dick had neither a kitchen table, nor milk- they both sat on opposite counters on the kitchen, eating out of bowls.

Jason poked dubiously at his dry cereal. He hadn't had any food since breakfast that day, and he was _starving_ , but this was also really not what he came here for.

Honestly, he wasn't sure what he came here for.

"If you're not going to start talking, I will. I've been told I'm good at that," Dick finally said. Jason absently noted the lack of accent in his speech, clean and unprocessed. Nothing in his generically pronounced syllables tied him to any place.

"You're probably here because of Bruce. Besides Babs, he's the only thing we have in common, and let's face it- he's an enormous asshole. You're here because he fucked up somehow."

Jason picked at his cereal, laboriously chewing and then swallowing.

"You live alone," he said finally.

Well, no fucking shit, genius.

"And, like," Jason struggled to articulate, "you work alone?"

Dick slowly nodded, for the first time in the interaction unsure of where it was going.

"So I was wondering if you would mind me helping you 'cause Bruce is shutting me out and you live in Blüdhaven there's no _way_ you don't have seven hundred cases open and you know what, fuck Bruce anyways!"

"What? No!" Dick said, confused. He also realized at that exact moment how many homicide reports were splayed out on the counter behind Jason. Something Jason had noticed three dialogue tags ago. "Don't touch those!"

Jason flipped open a police report anyways. "Ooh, look. Murder."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someday im gonna explain the real reason jason represses his emotions so much: it's not because it's manly it's because he hiccups when he cries and that's embarrassing.


	2. nothing posh

Nightwing, Batman's first lieutenant and resident vigilante of Bludhaven, works a 9 to 5 job. As a cop. And drinks coffee and has donuts. As a cop. Jason couldn't believe that this man could legally be called his brother.

This doesn't actually have any bearing on anything transpiring currently. Jason just  _really_ wanted people to know that.

At the moment, he was alone. Despite the general disruption he had brought with him, Nightwing had a schedule, and he was sticking with it. Which was... actually kind of a funny thought to have. 1 AM: Interrogate criminals. 2 AM: Punch someone. 3 AM: Go to sleep.

Yeah, okay, he could have thought of something funnier with that. Fight him. He was tired, and distracted, and really really afraid of touching anything because he wasn't sure how booby trapped the apartment was. So instead of doing anything remotely interesting, here he was. Sitting completely still on a couch.

It was probably the most still Jason had been in three years. Naturally, his mind started to wander a bit, spinning itself around in circles out of boredom. But each time, it wound it's way back to the same thing.

_"You're not worthy of that symbol."_

His internal reflections were rudely interrupted by his legal brother crashing in through the window. Huh. 3 AM. Right on time.

* * *

 Currently, said legal brother was sleeping on (what Jason had dubbed) the Hell Couch. Through either lots of practice or a _stunning_ amount of damaged sensory neurons, Dick was fast asleep. Jason had seated himself on his brother's bony, spine-y back, a marginal improvement over the couch.

It was probably 6 AM, but time had no meaning in the dark, liminal void that was Dick's apartment. Everything was lit by the harsh blue light of the laptop teetering dangerously on the edge of the coffee table. Police reports, manila folders, assorted notes, and pens took up the rest of the space.

It looked vaguely like something out of A Beautiful Mind, is what Jason would have thought if he'd ever watched A Beautiful Mind.

Right now he was just digging through the papers, cursing as furiously as was allowed when you were in close proximity to a sleeping person. /Something hadn't matched up, which would have been helpful information if Jason had any clue what that something even was.  
  
He gave up, letting the notebook paper and printed out CCTV footage flutter to the table dissatisfactorily.

(That's not a word, but when Jason's annoyed he uses lots of syllables, regardless of validity.)

It was a serial killer. They knew that much, but none of the victims had anything in common, not age, class, height, or even shirt colour. The randomness was almost _deliberate_.

However, they were all tattooed with the same set of symbols before being stabbed to death. The symbols didn't even mean anything, according to Zatanna, the magician Dick had asked to translate. They varied from alchemic to Aramaic, and meant something involving stars of mercury and hellbeast rot. Whatever _that_ meant. Frickin' new age weirdos.

Jason carefully picked up his pen and looked back at the timeline. The killer had claimed one victim a day, for the past four days. It all happened at different times, one even in broad daylight. Two instances had even occurred within a few hours of each other, separated only by the arbitrary line in the sand that was 12 AM-

Wait. If there was one thing Jason knew, it was that serial killers stalked their prey. Sure, it was possible to get from East End to the docks in two and a half hours. But you wouldn't have enough time left to abduct and tattoo a guy, stab him, and then- Oh shit.

Jason poked his brother in the side, hard. Dick jerked awake, dislodging him and the paper nest he'd built.

"Dickthere'smorethanonekillerohmygod," Jason said.

Dick took a second to process. "Wha- like Scream?"

"Sure." Jason had never seen Scream either. "I'm thinking doomsday cult."

Dick sat up. "Walk me through it."

"Okay okay, so _that_ guy," Jason pointed to a suspect labelled Malcolm McDonwald, "is the lead suspect right? He killed Colm Wilkinson. Enough CCTV and witnesses to place him at the scene of the crime, but only in East End. Not at the docks. And it takes, if you're speeding, two and a half hours on average to cross that distance. But the murders were three hours and seventeen minutes apart, and forty-seven minutes isn't enough time to tattoo someone this intricately, let alone stab them, what?" Jason peeked at the official coroner's report. "Fifty-five times?"

"So, who killed Lennox Rosse?" Dick asked, sounding like a kid's murder mystery picture book. (Actually, he is wrong and no kid's picture book sounds like that. Jason is just under-socialized.)

"That woman with the glasses. Uh, Macy Duff. She was at the docks that night, and has friends in common with McDonwald."

"It's the cult of five," Dick said, leaning over the table and making cryptic notes. There was an eye involved, which Jason really hoped was just pictoral shorthand.

"What?"

"Oh, I had a psychic link with a demon for a few years. She knew these kinds of things."

" _What?_ "

That was a fucking conversational curveball, and this was a conversation about doomsday cults.

"Yeah okay, so let's stalk McDonwald. God, that sounds weird. Did you bring your costume? If not, I'm ditching you."

Jason took a really deep breath. This man woke up three minutes ago.

"We're going out _now_?" He asked. Dick just gestured at the time. 5:40.

"It's called the cult of _five_ , Jason. And it's the fifth night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> easter egg time: the oc's names are theatre shoutouts, mostly macbeth related, because i am that kind of person. no hidden forshadowing or meaning. i'm just lazy and faux-intellectual.
> 
> (Macy Duff - Macduff, Malcolm Mcdonwald - Malcom (King Duncan's son) and Macdonwald, Colm Wilkinson - the first actor to play Jean Valjean, and Lennox Rosse - a couple of Thanes who had normal sounding names)
> 
> btw: dick is referring to his psychic link w/ raven from the teen titans show. i fucking love that show.


	3. so follow me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason is a brat, and Dick is a bad brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i accidentally posted this on friday oops
> 
> anyways i lost the original first chapter and school has been kicking my ass so instead i rewrote and split the chapter. I'll try as hard as I can to get the final chapter in by next weekend.
> 
> Also, tomorrow's my birthday!

Bludhaven was not the kind of city Gotham was. Gotham was hazes of cigarette smoke and yellow lights shining out of stone architecture. Gotham was a city built to last. Bludhaven was not.

 

The buildings were squat and littered the terrain as far as the eye could see. Made with cement, and painted in all manner of sickly pastel, the homes gave the appearance of crumpled up balls of paper, scattered on the floor. The walls were caked with mud, and the air held the scent of sea and shit. 

 

Overall, the city looked like it could be wiped out at any moment.

 

Dick had lived in many cities in his life. But he'd never really belonged to any of them. He'd never understood the concept of a home, the concept of having 'a city', until his parents died and gave him roots.

 

Unlike Jason. Jason was from Gotham, born and bred, and it showed. You could hear it in his accent, see it in his mannerisms. He belonged to the city, for better or for worse.

 

So what was he doing in Bludhaven? What did he hope to get from here?

 

His musings were interrupted when he noticed McDonwald get up. Was he going to call someone- yep, he's calling someone.

 

"Jason," Dick whispered, nudging the younger boy. "Get your hoodie on. I need you to pretend to be a boy scout."

That wasn't a metaphor or anything. They needed to plant a bug inside the guys house, and, well. Jason had brought his civvies. (He claimed it was too cold. It was April, and Dick called bullshit.)

 

"I want you to know, deep down, from the bottom of my heart, I hate you," Jason said. "Completely and utterly."

 

"You met me a few hours ago."

 

"Time is made up and I hate you."

 

Oh, clever. Using his own words against him. Clearly, he took lessons from Bruce.

 

"Yeah, yeah, go be a good little spy and make conspiracy theorists paranoid and everything."

 

"You are the worst brother ever. He's a serial killer."

 

"Yep!" Dick said brightly. "Out you go!"

 

Jason jumped off the roof, yelling out an indistinct 'hate you!'. If he zipped up his hoodie, he just looked like a civilian with weird taste in leggings. The hem hit low enough, at mid-thigh, to hide the distinctive markings of the Robin costume.

 

Dick crept to the edge of the roof, directly across the listed address for Malcolm McDonwald. Repressing the urge to rip his mask off, he brought his binoculars up to his eyes and focused on watching Jason. The masks's lenses made everything an irritating grayscale, washing out all the colour, but Jason was clear enough.

 

He knocked on the door sharply, three times. Dick took the time to be slightly affronted, seeing as Jason had just broken into his place without any regard towards formalities like that.

 

There was a tense half minute that dragged on longer than thirty seconds had a right to. Just as Jason was about to turn around, the door swung open to reveal a casually dressed middle-aged man.

 

"Hi sir," Jason said, "I'm a Boy Scout!" His back was to Dick, so he couldn't be sure, but Jason sounded like he was smiling as hard as he could.

 

"A... Boy Scout?" McDonwald repeated, confused.

 

"Yeah! Would you like to buy some cookies?"

 

"That's Girl Scouts," Dick said through the comms.

 

"We have  _ excellent  _ cookies," Jason reiterated aggressively. Dick sniggered from his spot on the rooftop.

 

McDonwald had asked Jason to come inside, which Dick thought was super creepy and way too obvious. He shifted uncomfortably, changing sitting positions on his rooftop. Jason was still visible through silhouettes in the curtains, and confirmation came through the uncomfortable metal earpiece jammed in his ear.

 

“So, Alfredo,” McDonwald’s voice came through as faint background noise. “How old are you?”

 

“Say fifteen,” Dick said, because fifty-five would be on the nose and a bit hard to believe.

 

“I  _ am  _ fifteen.”

 

Oh. Hah.

 

McDonwald said something indistinct in the background.

 

“What was that?”

 

“ _ Yeah _ , fifteen  _ is  _ a nice age,” Jason responded, stilted.

 

“Don’t talk weird. He’ll notice,” Dick said around a mouthful of granola bar he found in his pocket. Jason’s middle finger had a truly lovely sillhoutte.

 

McDonwald said something else, more indistinct than before. Dick began sorely wishing for a rewind button on the comms. “Move closer to him,” he said.

 

“I would love to go to the docks with you, Mr…..”

 

“Jason, stop. Don’t go with him, anywhere.”

 

“Though, it’s pretty early. I  _ sure  _ hope nobody follows us.”

 

“Jason, you are  _ being a brat _ .”

 

“Alright! Let’s go!”

 

“ _ Jason I swear to god- _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason's fake name, Alfredo, is because a guy named Alfredo kept looking over my shoulder to see what I was doing and i wanted to freak him out :)


	4. planting seeds in a garden you never get to see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao so! school has been kicking my ass, which means I am probably not going to produce more content in a while. i worked really hard to get this out by saturday, tho, because it does mean a lot to me that this be finished.
> 
> and there's a /massive/ multi-chap fic being planned out for this verse, so i can't wait to do that!

It was officially 5:57 in the morning. Cultists, apparently, did not have quite a keen sense of time or punctuality.

 

Dick felt like he could have made a pun out of that if he tried a little harder. He was tired, sue him.

 

Jason was doing fairly well, down there. McDonwald seemed extremely desperate, and very willing to overlook the sketchy things about this situation. Namely, all of it. What was it Bruce said? Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot?

 

Dick snorted to himself around a mouthful of pocket granola. Bruce was a goddamn asshole, and anyways, one could also argue that  _ he  _ was superstitious as fuck. He dressed up as a bat and punched people in the face. There wasn't even the excuse of precedent, like there was with him and Jason, he just up and decided on bats and punching.

 

Weirdo.

 

Anyways, 5:57 AM. It wasn't deserted, and one could feel the civilization at 5 AM, but it was quiet. Nobody had shaken off the shroud of sleep enough to make noise, so silence reigned. Nobody payed attention to the old white dude walking off with a small latino kid. Nobody looked up and saw the figure running after them, greyed out in the morning sun.

 

Jason was doing surprisingly well. He  _ was  _ Robin, after all. Well, not really. He's  _ Bruce's  _ Robin, but he's not  _ Robin  _ Robin.

 

Dick didn't really know how to feel about that. Fuck Bruce, 'cause he  _ knew _ , knew where the name came from, but, well. Jason didn't. At least, he hoped Jason didn't. 

 

Still, it wasn't a coincidence that Dick refused to call the kid Robin. It's not Jason's name. It's not his title. It's not his history.

 

It's Dick's.

* * *

 

McDonwald takes Jason through the formulaic gridlocked streets of Bludhaven, going faster and faster the quicker the clock ticks down.

 

Maybe he's aiming for 6, now that the ritual was postponed due to a pesky little thing called natural progression of time.

 

Dick jumps from building to building, refraining from using his lines. The area was suburban, or as suburban as Bludhaven got, and so the houses were squashed together in a definitely non fire code compliant manner.

 

Jason and McDonwald didn't appear to be talking, and nothing was coming through his comms. McDonwald kept glancing about, checking his phone in his pocket constantly. Dick couldn't tell if he was checking the time, or if he got messages.

 

"Why's he checking his phone?" he asked Jason.

 

"Why're you checking your phone?" Jason repeated robotically.

 

Dick groaned, and thanked the gods that McDonwald wasn't particularly concerned with how strangely 'Alfredo' acted.

 

Finally, they arrived at a park. Bludhaven parks weren't much different from parks across the nation. They smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, had benches full of couples making out, and were full of patchy, more yellow than green, grass.

 

This particular park was more or less empty. There were about eight others loitering in the area, probably graveyard shift workers from the local hospitals and 24/7 fast food places.

 

Except, they were all separated into pairs. And they were all converging to the centre of the park. And that was Macy Duff.

 

Oh Jesus shit. They were doing this ritual in a  _ public park _ ? He would never see parks the same way ever again.

 

Dick had to admit, however, it was a smart choice. There weren't any nearby buildings, and it was isolated in the middle, streets all around. If someone were to approach, they would be spotted immediately. 

 

"Malcolm!" Macy called, striding over. Now that she escaped the shadows cast by the trees, Dick could see that her pair wasn't another cultist, but another child.

 

"I thought you were bringing your nephew!" She asked, jerking her own child into view. She was yelling loud enough for it to reach Dick, both naturally and echoed through the comms.

 

Oh shit. They weren't just sacrificing one kid today.

* * *

 

"This one's actually fifteen," MacDonwald smiled, manhandling Jason in front of him. "Figured it'd be better."

 

"Mm," Duff smiled, leaning over the girl she was with. "My girl's fifteen and five months."

 

Dick got the feeling that Duff was a bit competitive.

 

"Can we get  _ started _ ?" A tall Puerto Rican man said. Rodrigo Desdemona, Dick recognised him from the files. Pity. He thought the guy was innocent, back when everyone was thinking 'serial killer'. He had  _ smile lines, _ for christ's sake. Everybody trusts smile lines.

 

Apparently, so did the kid he was with. Small, dark-skinned, and her features looked middle eastern. Nobody in his family was adopted, so Dick assumed he just grabbed her off the street.

 

That seemed a bit imprecise.

 

The other two adults showed up, Emilia Cassi and Bianca Montano, with their young sacrifices in tow. He couldn't quite tell from this distance whether the kids were related or not, as all four were white, and all white people looked alike to him.

 

"We will begin," Duff said, so quietly that Jason's bug barely picked it up, "when we are  _ FUCKING READY _ ."

 

Dick wasn't going to have hearing in that ear for a bit.

 

Visibly collecting herself, Duff turned to the east. The streaky yellows that heralded sunrise had risen above the treeline, rendering it in silhouette. The sun itself was neatly situated atop the skyline, crowning the buildings of Gotham.

 

"Formation," She said, thankfully at a normal volume this time. Immediately, each cultist took their separate child and faced outwards in a circle, with Duff at the head. "Knives out," She said, and they obeyed.

 

"Oh thank god," Jason quipped. "You weren't just happy to see me."

 

They were going to have a talk about dark one-liners when this was over.

 

McDonwald jerked the little brat again, and Jason's bug caught the other kids mutters and whispers and sobs. Dick had a moment of sympathy- it was hard to concentrate on the job when civilians were breaking down around you. It stressed you out.

 

Carefully, he dropped from his rooftop to the alley behind it. Now, the shop hid the park from view, and he only had the faint audio of Jason's bug to guide him. Carefully, he crept around the side of the building, back to the wall. They were all facing outwards, maybe to prevent something like what he was about to do from happening. However, they also each had a child in their arms, all of them breaking down in some way or another.

 

"Jason, be distracting for me."

 

Jason started screaming. Not words or anything. Just one really long high note.

 

Kid could probably sing that Whitney Houston song if he wanted.

 

Dick took the opportunity to-

 

(He threw a stick.)

 

(It's an eskrima, and you know it.)

 

(Yeah, but you know what eskrima means?  _ Stick  _ fighting. I googled that specifically for this argument.)

 

Dick took the opportunity to throw his eskrima at Cassi, smashing her in the head. Jason grabbed McDonwald's arm and then smashed his elbow right in his face, breaking what may have been his nose.

 

By that point, Dick had caught up to the park, running onto the soft, dew-covered grass. Jason's jacket had been shredded (but not subsequently mourned), and was hanging on by his left shoulder, exposing the R symbol.

 

The grass was slippery and wet, and Dick didn't quite feel like falling straight on his face, so he opted to just punch Montano in th-

 

Jason just screamed.

 

Not like before. Real. Jason just screamed.

 

Dick whipped around, and Jason had a knife in his shoulder. A kid was under him, wild-eyed and frozen, hugging the ground.

 

Jason took a knife for another kid.

 

Dick hit the button on his wrist, the one that sent his current location to every number associated with the BHPD. Then he threw the second stick.

 

Desdemona fell in a terrible heap, but Dick didn't really notice or care. He had already looked back to-

 

Duff was holding her knife to a child's neck. Her teeth were bared, like a snarling dog. It was the little middle eastern girl, unconscious. The others had run away during the commotion but- there was blood at her temple. She hit her head? She was hit?

 

Duff was trembling, and a red line was carving it's way into the girl's neck. She didn't try to stop it.

 

Dick couldn't get the-

 

There was a batarang buried in Duff's hand. It wasn't there before. Duff let go of the knife, clutching her hand to her chest.

 

Dick ran and grabbed the girl. He registered Jason in the corner of his vision, running to Duff. He was focused on the little girl's neck.

 

He couldn't hear anything anymore. None of the screams or struggles. He couldn't see. Everything was dark. But he could feel.

 

She felt like a person who was dying. She felt like someone he killed. She felt-

 

She wasn't dead yet.

* * *

 

"She has a pulse! She's got a pulse!" Dick yelled, trying to be heard over… something. Wasn't there screaming? He remembered screaming. It was faint, a thumping in her wrist beating out at- 50 beats per minute. She looked… fifteen probably. She should have a BPM of- he knew this. He should know this.

 

There. He heard it. Sirens, that's what he was shouting over.

 

They got here fast this time. That's good. Where's Jason?

 

There. Out by the ambulance. He found himself a mask? He has bandage- right, he got stabbed. No, not stabbed. There was Desdemona's knife, and it was-

 

Dick walked over and sat down beside the kid. He was staring down at his hands.

* * *

 

"My hands are bloody."

 

"Yeah, Jay. Generally, that happens in a fight."

 

"Do you know Lady Macbeth?" Jason asked suddenly.

 

"What? Yes," Dick said, unsure of where this was going.

 

"She, she didn't kill the king. Not really. But she was  _ involved _ , she's  _ why  _ he's dead. And then, and then the guilt drives her crazy. And she keeps trying to clean her hands. Keeps trying to get the blood off them."

 

"This is  _ the  _ nerdiest way to admit you're fucked up. I just ran away, but you gotta bring  _ Shakespeare  _ into this?"

 

"Shut up! This is serious!"

 

"Yeah, okay. Listen. Why don't you, you know, tell me what you did. So, I can be a little less clueless about what's going on?"

 

"I… There was this guy. He was nasty, and scummy, and… He was a bad person. I didn't like him. And we were alone, and then he fell. And I guess, I guess I could have saved him but… I was too late. And maybe, inside, maybe I didn't  _ want  _ to save him? But I was the only one who could have, and now his blood is on my hands."

 

"Jay, I killed people."

 

" _ What? _ "

 

"Yeah. I… it's part of the reason why Bruce threw me out. Or, I ran away. Well, both. I left, because, well, because Bruce can't get over shit. He feels bad about shit, and he tries to make everyone else feel like shit then, because he feels bad."

 

Jason scoffed a little, dropping his hands. "He told me you were the perfect Robin. It's why… it's why I came here, I guess. I wanted to see how the golden boy performed. Wanted to… I don't know, close the gap?"

 

"There isn't any," Dick grinned, reaching over and ruffling the kid's hair.

 

Jason was a good kid. Dick got the feeling that his parents wouldn't mind.

 

"You're Robin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more easter eggs:  
> the remaining oc names are from othello. (Rodrigo Desdemona = Roderigo is the guy who tries to kill Cassio, Desdemona is Othello's wife whom everyone's in love with. Emilia Cassi = Emilia is the wife of the villain, Iago, and Cassio is Othello's lieutenant. Bianca Montana = Bianca is a courtesan, Montana is the governer who wraps the play up.)
> 
> i fucking love shakespeare my dudes.

**Author's Note:**

> school has probably started by the time i finish posting this so i will def be SUPER BUSY which either means you're gonna get a sudden influx of procrastination-fic or nothing for half a year. i'm like that.
> 
> send prompts at dreampunk.tumblr.com!


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